Showing posts with label Vanderbilt Moments. Show all posts

2025 Career Luminary Award

Yes. I got one of those glass triangles on the table. Solid and heavy.

Super cool to get an Impact Award.

Special shoutout to Keivan Stassun & Tim Vogus for recruiting me to Vanderbilt University in the first place, to be able to contribute to IMPACT here.

Established in 2024, these awards recognize the essential contributors to student career growth across eleven categories for faculty, staff, alums, parents, employer partners, and students.

Dear Hari Srinivasan,

Congratulations! You are a 2025 recipient of the Career Luminary Award.

Your outstanding contributions to career empowerment within our university community have not gone unnoticed, and we are thrilled to honor your dedication and excellence. These awards are incredibly special,

Career Luminary Award (Current PhD Student): This award celebrates a graduate student who has shown exceptional dedication to career development within their academic program and has made a significant impact on career-related initiatives.

First Peer Review

Just completed a peer review for JADD (Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders). Good to get to contribute to the scientific process from the other side. It’s unexpectedly empowering to get to evaluate work in your field.

🎓 What’s Peer Review?

Before a research paper gets published in a scientific journal, they’re sent to 2-3 other experts in the same field (🧠 like me now!) to read and give detailed feedback. It’s not just saying a simple yes or no. As a reviewer, you're expected to check if the research question is meaningful, evaluate whether the methods and data are sound, identify missing info or unclear sections, suggest improvements, flag any ethical / technical concerns and recommend whether it should be accepted, revised, or rejected. The goal is to make sure the science is solid before it becomes part of the official literature. The goal is to check for quality, accuracy, and whether the work adds something new to the field. It’s kind of like a report card for a research paper, by people who understand the topic.

Inside Higher Ed

Article in "Inside Higher Ed" in Frist Center for Autism and Innovation

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/diversity/2025/04/07/vanderbilts-program-neurodivergent-phds-loses-its-funding

‘Highest Levels of Research’

Hari Srinivasan, an advocate for autistic people, neuroscience Ph.D. student and NISE program fellow, told Inside Higher Ed in an email that the revocation of the NSF funding could have ripple effects on the overall perception of autistic people, as well as on research into their experiences.

“When you cut off the funds, autism gets less visibility, which means opportunities are less, which will slow the work we’ve done towards progress and solutions,” wrote Srinivasan. “[It] also means less research in autism space. And ultimately research findings is what influences funding priorities, who get access to what spaces, who gets access to what resources, and it is research findings that lead us to solutions.”

Srinivasan, who describes himself as having limited spoken language ability, said he’d been interested in neuroscience since he was a middle schooler and became fascinated by illustrations of the nervous system in textbooks owned by his aunt and uncle, who are doctors. But his experiences with special education classes in elementary and middle school—which he described as being “like kindergarten on repeat year after year”—left him unsure if he would be able to pursue his dreams of becoming a neuroscientist.

Luckily, his experiences at a charter high school that allowed him to take more advanced courses and at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his undergraduate degree, continued to set him up for success: Stassun personally recruited him to Vanderbilt. Now he is researching how autistic people “perceive and interact with the space immediately around their bodies, known as peripersonal space,” he told Inside Higher Ed. He hopes to transform his research into practical solutions “that can help autistics better navigate their spatial and social environment.”

Graduate Appreciation Week

Dear Graduate Students,

As we kick off national Graduate Student Appreciation Week, I want to be the first to tell you how grateful we here in the BRET Office are that you are part of our Vanderbilt community. We thank you for the contributions you have made and are making to the progress of science. Your effort and perspectives are important to our faculty, staff, postdocs, and your fellow grad students.

Your hard work, dedication, and resilience are critical elements for our pushing the frontiers of biomedical research, and it is privilege for us to help you along the way.

On behalf of all of my BRET Office colleagues …. thank you for all of your contributions.

Walter J. Chazin, PhD
Chancellor’s Chair in Medicine
Departments of Biochemistry and Chemistry
Senior Associate Dean for Graduate and Postdoctoral Education

and Training, School of Medicine Basic Sciences
Director, Molecular Biophysics Training Program

Founding Director, Center for Structural Biology

First Forum Presentation

Exciting News from our Lab!

We're proud to share that two of our talented third-year PhD candidates in Neuroscience, William Quackenbush and

Hari Srinivasan, recently presented their research at the Vanderbilt Brain Institute's Neuroscience Graduate Program Research Forum!

This was their first time presenting at the forum, and both talks were incredibly well received.

Coinciding with Autism Month of April, Hari Srinivasan presented his research on: "Virtual Bubbles, Real Insights: Investigating Peripersonal Space (PPS) in Autism." Hari's work explores how autistics process the space around their bodies, offering a novel perspective on sensory-motor integration.

In March, William Quackenbush presented his research on: "Regulating Rhythms: Elucidating Brain-Behavior Relationships of Motor Stereotypies Across Sensory Landscapes." His work focuses on motor stereotypies (or stimming) in autism, aiming to understand the sensory and motor dynamics that shape these behaviors.

Both William and Hari are co-mentored by Prof. Mark Wallace at Vanderbilt and Prof. Carissa Cascio (now at the University of Kansas, Lawrence). They are also NISE Fellows (Neurodiversity Inspired Science & Engineering Fellows) at the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation, reflecting their commitment to advancing autism research through innovative and interdisciplinary approaches.

It’s exciting to see these promising areas of research being presented at the forum! Congratulations to both William and Hari on their well-received presentations!

Scientific Peer-Review Mentoring Program

Going to get to learn new skills. ....

Comment in Vanderbilt Hustler

Very happy to comment on Prof Keivan Stassun for this article in the Vanderbilt Hustler

RCR Training for NSF Senior Personnel

Course completed

2024 AUCD Young Professional Award

Received the 2024 AUCD Young Professional Award

My Research at Vanderbilt

https://lab.vanderbilt.edu/live/person/hari-srinivasan/

https://lab.vanderbilt.edu/live/about/people/

More specifically on my lab's research project

https://lab.vanderbilt.edu/live/2024/06/12/creation-of-immersive-cave-environment-for-sensory-testing-in-children/

VKC Science Day

Poster Presentation at VKC Science Day

https://vkc.vumc.org/multisensory/hari.html

Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Science Day - Tuesday, October 15, 2025

2024 Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Science Day will take place Tuesday, Oct. 15, beginning at 11:30 a.m. at Vanderbilt University Student Life Center. Posters will be hung in the Commodore Ballroom from 10:00-11:30 a.m. with the program beginning at 11:30 a.m. in the Commodore Ballroom. Science Day festivities will include lunch, two poster sessions, a keynote, and a Data Blitz, closing with a wine/cheese reception. Find updates for Science Day at the VKC Science Day webpage here: https://vkc.vumc.org/vkc/scienceday/

The SfN experience

Was at the Society for Neuroscience Conference from Oct 4-9.

Largest neuroscience conference in the world with 22K attendees and 3K exhitors. A mix of overwhelm and awe.

2 poster sessions navigated - a 2 hr long one during the Early Career Session linked to my TPDA award and another 4hr one under Cross Modal Processing in Humans Session

NSF GRFP New Fellows Welcome Event

"Keep making excellence a Priority"

APS Poster Acceptance

From: psychologicalscience@confex.com <psychologicalscience@confex.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2024 4:36 PM

To: Srinivasan, Hari <hari.srinivasan@vanderbilt.edu>
Subject: Your APS Submission Notification - Virtual Summit

Dear Hari,

Congratulations! I am pleased to inform you that your poster submission, "Navigating the Near: VR Investigations of Peripersonal Space in Autism", has been accepted for presentation at the 2024 APS Global Psychological Science Summit, October 23-24, 2024.

Neurotransmitters Flow in this Autism Mind